Independent Directors in Ensuring Good Corporate Governance

Abstract

This essay primarily analyses the role of independent directors in ensuring good corporate governance. This will begin by analysing the concept of an independent director and the two roles of an independent director in a broad sense. After that, the paper explains why independent directors sometimes fail to achieve the desired results of promoting good corporate governance from two perspectives. In addition to these theoretical analyses, this essay also analyses the practical effects. This essay analyses the practical effects of the independent director system in the UK, the US and India and it analyses what problems independent directors have been used to solve in different countries. In conclusion, this paper argues that factors such as different countries and different corporate structures need to be taken into account when analysing whether independent directors can ensure good corporate governance.